The invention relates generally to food processing equipment, and more particularly to an apparatus for separating and aligning food products that may be collected together.
In the food industry there is a need for equipment to help with the assembly of sandwiches, because this process is otherwise performed by hand. Mechanized equipment allows for higher precision, consistency and production rates and reduces labor costs.
Conveyor belts upon which a bread slice or other substrate travels are devices commonly used in systems of assembling sandwiches, and machines are spaced along the path of the conveyor for adding components to the substrate. By the time the substrate reaches the end of the conveyor, a completed sandwich is assembled.
One type of component that is commonly added to a substrate is a patty, which may be processed beef, chicken, pork or vegetables in a disk shape. Other patties may be made of other food products, and patties vary from circular to rectangular to irregular shapes. Patties are commonly frozen for freshness, and may be frozen together so that they are not readily applied by machines known to apply a patty to a bread substrate.
Furthermore, patties may come stacked or unorganized in containers, and it can be difficult to rapidly singulate patties, which is the form patties need to be in to be ready to be applied by a machine. Therefore, there is a need for a machine that can take multiple patties or other food products, and align them in single file to be received by a machine that applies the patties to a food substrate or conveyor.